


Learn By Experience

by Briana_Dubs



Category: Kind of includes the Fantastic Four, Venom (Comics), Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: I just liked the idea of Venom walking into a pole because Eddie smiled at them, I just really wanted to write a college AU, M/M, but like, does this tie in to the fantastic four?, i have no energy, i honestly don't know, it might, so it's not much of an AU, specifically mentioned the flaming torch, there are mutants, whatever man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-19 03:36:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16526579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Briana_Dubs/pseuds/Briana_Dubs
Summary: College AU Symbrock.Or the beginnings of it.Eddie meets one of the 'new kids' and they become friends.Venom likes Eddie.





	Learn By Experience

Eddie Brock wasn’t sure what had prompted his ex-girlfriend’s outburst at first. The loud, shocked gasp and muffled sounding whimper had him stopping in his tracks to spin around and look at her.

“Holy shit, Eddie, look how big that guy is!” Anne whispered, furiously pointing her finger past Eddie’s right shoulder.

When Eddie turned around, again, he looked in the vague direction she pointed until he found what she meant. There was a hulking, muscular figure walking with a small stack of books in their arms. Or maybe the stack only looked small. If Eddie had to guess he’d say whoever that was had to be at least eight feet tall. And after a minute of staring, he saw the figure being followed by two others almost the exact same height and build. If he and Anne didn’t go to a school full of mutants he might have been concerned by the fact that all of them were solid colors, grey, black, and yellow, and looked vaguely squishy. But he had seen a man walking down the street earlier today who didn’t seem bothered at all by the fact that he was on fire, so squishy humanoids was okay.

“Woah, they’re all huge!” Annie had stepped up to Eddie’s side. “Look at their teeth!”

Eddie watched the three of them absolutely mystified. “Think they’re mutants like that fire guy?”

“Maybe.”

There was a small hitch in Eddie’s breathing when one of the figures, the solid black one, turned their head toward him. Big, empty looking white eyes stared back at him. With all those teeth, it kind of felt like looking into the dead eye stare of a shark. Still, they were new to the university. He raised his hand in a tiny, meek little wave and tried his best to smile.

The person walked straight into a light pole.

Eddie slammed his hand over his mouth after the first laugh squeaked out and had to hit Annie to get her to do the same.

“Don’t be rude!” He hissed at her.

Anne swatted back at him. “ _You_ don’t be rude! You’re just standing here when you could go over and help the poor thing!”

“Oh, shit.” Eddie turned his attention back, fully intent on going to help, but stops. The books and the three figures are completely gone. No sign of them anywhere. He blew out a long, hot breath of air and put his hands on his hips. “How’d three people that big move so fast?”

“You run at the speed of light whenever you’re embarrassed,” Anne said, nudging Eddie, “It’s probably a universal thing.”

 

* * *

 

The next time Eddie saw the person, he was sitting at lunch with a couple of his classmates from his science class. Or, one of his science classes. They all kind of blurred together after a while. Dora Skirth and her friend Carlton Drake. Personally Eddie felt like Drake was a bit of an asshole, but he was smart and the three of them were working on a project together, so he dealt with it.

Halfway to shoving a chili cheese fry into his face hole, Eddie’s eyes caught a head of shiny black above the crowd of people in the mess hall. Cafeteria. Lunch room. Whatever this room where they had buffets of food and tables was called.

He didn’t even realize he was staring with his mouth still hanging open until Dora pressed her hand to the bottom of his chin and snapped it shut again.

Drake turned himself around to see what had him so focused and scoffed. Loudly.

“Oh yeah, _that guy_ ,” he said.

Eddie blinked. “You know ‘em?”

“That’s Venom,” Drake said. “Bad news. Them and their friends.”

“Why are they bad news?”

“They’re aliens who need to eat brains to live or something like that.” Drake rolled his shoulders and pointed a fork at Eddie. “Seriously, Brock. If you don’t want your head getting munched on you’ll stay away from them.”

Dora was no help, because when Eddie turned to her she just shrugged and nodded her head.

“You guys actually talked to them?”

“Psh, no,” Drake laughed like it was a joke. “Nobody talks to those freaks.” Now Eddie puffed up with anger. Their school preached diversity and fairness. This was why he hated Drake. Asshole.

“Well, thanks for the chat, I’m gonna go work on my third of the project.”

 

* * *

 

Eddie had ended up meeting Venom after trying and failing to get a stolen notebook back from his friend Maria. He had let her look at it for a second and the next she was sprinting away from him and cackling like a witch.

“Dammit, Maria, I need that notebook for my exam tomorrow!”

Maria stuck her tongue out at him and disappeared around a corner. When Eddie followed after her, he smacked face first into a wall of somewhat slimy black. He flopped backwards and landed on his ass.

“Fuck,” he groaned, looking toward his feet and seeing several of his papers sprawled across the sidewalk. Before he could even find the strength to complain about it more, thin black tendrils stretched down and started gathering up the papers.

Lifting his gaze, Eddie watched th- Venom wiggle and morph slightly in shape and couldn’t help himself from smiling a little bit.

Pushing up to his feet and brushing himself off, Eddie said, “Hey, thanks. You didn’t have to do that.”

Venom collected all the papers in one big clawed hand and held them out toward Eddie. The big white eyes were hard to get a read on. Eddie couldn’t tell exactly where Venom was looking.

“Sorry I ran into you, dude.”

“Not a dude.”

Eddie paused in shuffling his papers back into one of his folders and looked up at the alien. “Sorry?”

Venom almost looked sheepish at that. “I… we… not a dude,” they said again.

It took Eddie a minute to understand what that meant. “Oh! Oh, you mean like gender wise?” When he saw a little nod, he smiled. “Gotcha, gotcha. Sorry,” he said, “I just kinda call everybody dude or guy. It’s just something I do.”

“Oh… Is it a human thing?”

“Kinda,” Eddie smiled up at the massive alien. “It’s sort of like nicknames. I’ll call my friends bro or something, no matter what gender they are. A lot of people do stuff like that.”

Venom, Eddie noticed, looked to always be smiling. All those teeth… It was hard to get a read on emotions with the eyes and the teeth, but he could read body language pretty well. He saw the way Venom perked up a little bit and their shoulders relaxed.

“So, you’re new here, right? You and your buddies? Ooh, buddy! That’s another word I use when referring to people.” Eddie had started walking and Venom followed by his side. He had to crane his neck to look up at them, but he was kind of used to that with how many huge students went to their university.

“Yes,” Venom answered. “We are here learning about Earth culture. Seeing if it is a viable place to send a colony of our kind.”

“Oh, so you’re taking classes on how humans do stuff?”

“Yes. But we have noticed that learning by observation is just as beneficial as the studies on your planet’s history.”

Nodding, Eddie hummed. “Yeah, that makes sense.  Sometimes you gotta learn by experience…” The conversation lulled for a moment. Venom was still just staring down at him and it was slightly uncomfortable. “So how are you liking Earth?”

Again the shoulders relaxing. Venom really seemed at ease talking to him. Anne had always said he was a very approachable guy. “We like it very much! There are so many foods! And so many new thing to see and feel! We like it here very much.”

“You speaking for everyone or just yourself?” At the question, Venom cocked their head to the side. “You just keep saying we a lot.”

“Oh,” and all at once half of Venom melted away and a much smaller blue skinned man was standing by Eddie’s side. He may or may not have let out a high pitched shriek when it happened. “Venom only exists when bonded to a host! Otherwise it’s just a symbiote. My name is Tel-Kar.” He smiled and shook Eddie’s hand. “We really do like it here, though. I’m sure the symbiotes are going to enjoy this planet.”

Exhaling, Eddie mumbled to himself. “And here I thought the weirdest thing I would ever see was a man made out of living rocks.”

Venom had now fully reformed by his side and was walking with him again. “Actually, we had been thinking that it might be helpful if Venom got to experience humanity first hand.”

“What’s that mean?”

“A human host.”

Eddie swallowed. “Oh.”

“You don’t like the idea, we can tell.” Venom visibly deflated and Eddie saw that ever smiling mouth tilt and twist into something like a frown.

“Well, it’s just…” He scratched at the back of his neck. “I heard you guys need to eat brains to survive.”

Now Venom reared back and snarled. “No!” They looked ready to hit something. “We need chemicals to survive! We try very hard not to hurt anyone who does not deserve it!”

Seeing how upset Venom got, Eddie found himself reaching a hand out to pat them on the shoulder. “Sorry, sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to offend you. I just… I guess I shouldn’t believe everything I hear.”

 

* * *

 

A month.

All it took was a month before Eddie agreed to take on the role of Venom. He had been hanging out with the alien so much that he kind of felt like it was inevitable. Tel-Kar had said Eddie was a genetic match for the symbitoe, so he would be completely safe fusing with it. They had settled down in his crappy little dorm room on the floor for the big transfer.

It had felt strange and left Eddie shuddering a little bit, but then the familiar voice he associated with Venom was talking in his head and it sounded so excited that he forgot the way his skin had been crawling.

He had changed his schedule around so he could attend some of his own classes still as well as some of Venom’s classes. The professors had been confused by it at first, but happy to help. Annie had nearly screamed when they first changed in front of her. And Carlton Drake refused to speak to Eddie after that. Of course, about a week later he had bonded with the grey symbiote, so maybe he had been trying to keep Eddie away from them before because he wanted to do it first? Either way, he was still an asshole.

Eddie and his symbiote got along incredibly well. They shared everything, Eddie taught them about all the stupid shit he knew that nobody was ever going to put into a textbook, and the two of them grew closer every day. After half a year, his symbiote was saying it wanted to stay with him and be Venom forever. Surprisingly or not, he found himself wanting the same thing.

**Author's Note:**

> I loved Venom so much, let me cry about Tom Hardy's performance a while longer.
> 
>  
> 
> That freaking lobster tank.


End file.
